South African Lottery Jackpots Soar as Draws go High-Tech

A major overhaul of South African National Lottery games will continue this weekend when new technology will be introduced to replace the existing ball machines. Ithuba officials say it is the latest step on the road to ‘reinvigorating the lottery’, having already made several big changes since being granted a licence to operate the National Lottery in 2015.

From Friday 8th September, the old-style ball machines will be scrapped for South Africa’s top draw games as part of a makeover of the country’s lottery TV shows. In place of the old machines will be ‘a world of leading digital random number technology which displays the winning numbers with catchy CGI animation and dynamic graphics’, according to a statement.

There will also be some huge jackpots on offer for South African lottery players this week. The top prize in Powerball Plus was increased to R20 million for last Friday’s draw and has still not been won, so a jackpot of R23 million will be up for grabs this Friday night. The Lotto Plus 2 jackpot also stands at R11 million ahead of tonight’s draw after being pushed up to R10 million on Saturday.

South Africa Lotto Plus 2 was only introduced last month as part of a series of exciting changes to Lotto. Another new game, Rapido, has also been added, giving players the chance to win up to R750,000 every five minutes between the hours of 5.00am and 11.45pm.

South African lottery games create thousands of winners every week, and one lucky woman from Gauteng has just come forward to claim an R25 million Lotto jackpot from 23rd August. The unemployed grandmother, in her mid-50s, spent R20 on her ticket and matched all six winning numbers.

She is now planning to build a big house for family. She said: “My grandchildren will have a huge yard to run around in and enjoy their upbringing. I would have been happy to win even a couple of hundred thousand rands and that still would have been enough to change the course of my life. But R25 million means not only will I be able to get a new lease on life, but I will be able to build and leave a legacy behind for generations to come in my family.”

Find out all about the South African Lottery, including the new Rapido game, ahead of this weekend’s big draws. Fans can take part by buying tickets from authorised retailers in South Africa or choosing numbers online.